Media.Knet.Ca

The late night comics roll their eyes
talking about settlements of class action suits where the plaintiffs
get pennies and the lawyers walk with millions. For many, this legal
larceny engenders the use of horse whips or water boards on the
distinguished members of the bar.

But up close, there is very little funny about this practice.

Nevertheless, it's happening again. This time, the subject of the
litigation is invisible fibers of asbestos that contaminates hundreds
of millions of tons of vermiculite insulation stuffed in the walls and
ceilings and attics of homes throughout North America.

W.R.Grace, which mined and sold potentially lethal Zonolite
insulation, has agreed to pay $6.5 million Canadian under a settlement
proposed by lawyers named by the Canadian version of the U.S.
bankruptcy court. Court documents show half of the money -- $3.25
million -- will be paid to the Canadian lawyers who put the deal
together, including a lawyer in Delaware who gets $360,000 for filing
the papers with the U.S. bankruptcy court.

What this means is that if 400,000 Canadian homeowners -- the
would-be plaintiffs in this class action suit -- sign up for money to
decontaminate their homes, they could each pocket $8.12. Typically,
asbestos removals from a home can cost in the tens of thousands of
dollars because many contractors view the removal of hazardous material
as a pot of gold.

Tremolite asbestos fiber

Meanwhile, south of the border, our government estimates that 15
million to 35 million homes contain dangerous material from the now
closed vermiculite mine in Libby, Mont.

The real tragedy is that very few homeowners on either side of the
border have a clue that their homes may be contaminated. Even fewer
know that a deadline of Oct. 31 has been set for homeowners to notify
the bankruptcy court that their homes are contaminated.

EPA promised to get the warning out years ago.

In attempting to declare a "public health emergency" in Libby, the
agency promised to "blanket" television shows and the nation's hardware
and home improvement chains with warnings about Zonolite. When the
White House blocked the emergency notification, our environmental
protectors in EPA headquarters forgot about the warning.

So today, most homeowners have no clue of the risk they face when
their kids play in the attic or mom hooks up an exhaust fan or the
cable guy strings his wire.

In repeated tests, government scientists and Grace's own experts
have shown that the slightest disruption of the fluffy, nickel-size
pieces of black, tan and gold tinted Zonolite released millions of the
asbestos fibers that have caused asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung
cancer.

Raven Thundersky

If you question the toxicity of the asbestos that has decimated
Libby, just check the town's cemetery or talk to Raven Thundersky in
Winnipeg. Her parents and three sisters died from cancer and asbestosis
from exposure to Zonolite in the family's government-built home on a
remote First Nation reservation at Poplar River, Man.

In Washington state in 2000, Spokane lawyer Darrell Scott filed the
nation's first Zonolite insulation suit on behalf more than 100,000
homeowners. But his efforts -- to get Grace to publish warnings of the
danger -- and those of scores of other lawyers suing on behalf of
thousands of people across the country sickened or killed from exposure
to the Grace product were derailed when the 150-year-old company filed
bankruptcy in April 2001.

This is an appropriate point to urge you not to set up the "Kill the lawyer" billboards.

While there obviously are greedy ones out there that embarrass their
own profession, we would be worse off without the efforts of many trial
lawyers. It's painfully apparent that government will not or cannot
protect its citizens from corporate shenanigans. Lawyers – both private
practitioners and those with advocacy groups - make them pay attention.

Think about it. Flavor manufacturers knew that the diacetyl in their
butter flavoring was sickening their own workers and those in microwave
popcorn plants. Most did nothing until they were dragged into court.

The same can be said for slipshod pharmaceutical producers, makers
and users of benzene and scores of other chemicals and, of course, our
friends in Columbia, Md., W.R. Grace.

The tens of thousands of pages of Grace documents, on which the P-I
based its investigation and which the Justice department used to
support the nation's largest environmental crime indictments, showed
that Grace knew their miners and their families in Libby and their
workers at hundreds of vermiculite processing plants were at risk. And
kept it secret.

Nothing happened until a small law firm in Montana began suing the
worldwide company on behalf of people who died because of its actions.

There are some heroes there as well as among some of EPA's frontline
troops – the emergency responders, investigators, toxicologists,
physicians, scientists and lawyers. They have busted their tails since
the Seattle P-I first reported on the tragedy in Libby in 1999. Many
stood up not only to Grace and the politicians in their pockets, but
also to the political appointees in their own agency and the White
House itself.

Some EPA regions are more involved than others. The regional offices
in Denver and Seattle led the way. Chicago was right in the midst of it
with its investigation of Grace's large Zonolite expansion plants in
Minneapolis.

Even today, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the EPA gang
from Chicago is back in town testing for asbestos in the air and dust
in 30 to 50 homes. Between 2000 and 2004 EPA had removed contaminated
soil from the yards of 268 homes near the plant.

Terry Thiele, who lived around the corner from the plant during his
childhood, told the paper that he and his siblings and mother all have
asbestosis to some degree and that his father died from mesothelioma.

"My whole family has lung X-rays that look like patchwork quilts
because of all the scarring" from the fibers, Thiele told Star reporter
Tom Meersman.

In Spokane, Scott told me: "People still don't know. There are
probably 120,00 to 140,000 homeowners in Washington alone with Zonolite
in their homes and most don't know it."

He is concerned that the Oct, 31 deadline imposed by Grace will pass
unknown to millions across the country. He has asked Grace bankruptcy
Judge Judith Fitzgerald to consider his class action filed in 2000 and
to allow him to file on behalf of tens of thousands of Washington
homeowners who own or occupy property containing the Zonolite
insulation.

Fitzgerald has yet to rule on his motion.

Here are some links with more information:

Here is the court's notice of the October deadline.

This is EPA's page on asbestos and here's more than anyone would want to know about vermiculite.